


The Fig Tree

by crystallitanie



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Be_compromised Valentine's Day Promptathon, Community: be_compromised, F/M, Fluff, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 20:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9843893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystallitanie/pseuds/crystallitanie
Summary: Written for the prompt:Cold showers, hot kisses, warm embraces, cool sheets, hard bodies, soft sighs.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This started off as a drabble and took a life of its own. Based on a prompt by Crazy4Orcas in be_compromised 2017 Valentine's Day Promptathon.  
> Many thanks to AlphaFlyer for lovely beta. All remaining mistakes are mine.

Natasha doesn't believe in heaven, but looking back, she can only describe this as the closest she'll ever get. Bright days and warm nights, under a golden light that seemed to shift in and out of her body, slowly but steadily lifting her spirit and buoying her up.

It was nothing special – a small house on a beach, somewhere on a small Mediterranean island. The bed was cramped and the water heater was broken, there was no air conditioning and the mosquitoes were everywhere. As far as accommodations went, they could have done a lot better. But it was August and the sea was splendid –cool and velvety and so calm under the blazing sun that it was like crystal– and the place was secluded so they could shed their clothes on the sand and get into the water naked, and Clint's body moving against hers at nights was enough to chase the mosquitoes away. And who needed hot water anyway, when the time spent in the shower meant less time spent sprawled in a lounger in the yard, looking at a sky full of stars with a glass of wine?

Staying back after the mission had been Clint's idea; luckily, Coulson hadn't thrown a big fit about it. They had decided to move to another island, though, just to make sure there would be no unpleasant surprises.

“It's called island hopping,” Clint had told her with a grin and proceeded to select the least popular destination in the area. The night ferry had dropped them at a sleepy harbor with a handful of houses and a few fishing boats. They had been forced to wait until the morning for the old man to open the local cafe, and then another couple of hours until someone who spoke English arrived. When Clint asked for a house, he got an astonished look. Obviously he had chosen well: the locals weren't used to tourists, even in the middle of the summer season.

Someone had procured a set of brass keys and a battered truck. They had bought provisions and followed the landlord, who had insisted that he should come along to make sure the place was still habitable.

Clint had given a look at the small white cottage, less than one hundred feet from the beach, and proclaimed it excellent.

Natasha wasn't really sure if this was the right word, but she was sidetracked by the fig tree in the yard, laden with fruit.

As it turned out, figs were not the only option. Clint would happily drive to the village every couple of days to procure grapes, tomatoes, cucumbers and olives, as well as local cheese and fresh fish. And local wine; the old lady in the cafe would sell it in plastic bottles, and it certainly wasn't Chavignon Blanc but it was just perfect.

She spent her days lying under the tamarisk tree, reading in her Kindle. It didn't quite provide the pleasure of a real book, but it had to do. Clint would explore the adjourning beaches and swim for hours, or simply lie next to her in the shade, eyeing her through his sunglasses and ostentatiously planning what he would do to her that night.

That was another novelty – the slow burn. After the adrenaline-fueled sex they'd become used to having during and after missions, this was refreshing. There was something to be said about spending the whole day at the beach, watching the sun set and then taking the narrow path back to the house. A cold shower, slowly preparing a bowl of fruits, settling together in the only unbroken lounger in the yard, drinking wine and talking quietly.

There was an old and battered radio in the kitchen, and they had managed to tune into a local station. The lyrics were incomprehensible, but the melody would drift up to the stars and for the first time in her life Natasha felt utterly at peace. And then Clint slowly standing up and offering his hand in a silent invitation. They would get inside and let the music and the crickets and the sound of the waves guide them through the night. The cool breeze would mingle with his hot breath over her body and later he would fall asleep with his face buried in her neck.

Natasha can never forget who she is, or what she has done in her life. But for that one week in that house in the middle of nowhere, with only the sun and the sea and Clint's hands anchoring her to the world, she felt as if she had left her baggage at the small harbor the morning they arrived. She never said it loudly, but she was sure that he knew.

The day before their departure he disappeared to the village for a couple of hours. He came back with a triumphant smile and a box full of plastic bottles.

“I thought we could take something with us. Keep us on the long winter nights,” he grinned.

Natasha wasn't sure that, given the choice between that and her own wine selection back home, she would choose this (she was not _that_ romantic), but he seemed so satisfied with himself that she smiled and gave him a kiss.

“What about other memorabilia?”, she asked indifferently.

“Nat, I know those pebbles you've been collecting from the beach will end up in your bag. You can't have chosen them for the sole purpose of keeping this tablecloth in place – they are too many and too shiny and it's not _that_ windy.”

She laughed and threw a fig to him, hitting him in the arm. The laugh turned into a giggle when he sprang forward, catching both her wrists in his hands.

“Now what?” she asked huskily.

Clint's face softened.

“I love you with every mask you wear, but here I love you more, because here you wear none.”

“Is that poetry, Barton?”

“Your moans are poetry, Nat. That was just another attempt to woo you into bed.”

 

*

 

It's Christmas Eve and it's insanely cold, which at the moment seems like a bitter irony.

If Natasha wants to be honest with herself –and she usually does– she must admit that the thought had first crossed her mind a couple of weeks after they had come back from that vacation. Then she was sent to another mission. She spent four months playing the honeypot for a fat Texan tycoon and the seven days on that island had been buried inside a small place of her mind, only resurfacing in particularly bad days, serving as something for her to hold on to.

Well, that's where they'll be buried again now. And if, for a mad moment, she thought that maybe she has found a place where she can be herself, a place where her body is none else's and it's only used for her own pleasure, that only goes to show that she should have known better. A second chance in life was enough. She shouldn't have asked for anything more than that.

Natasha shakes her head and tosses her phone on the bed. Too late. She'll always be too late.

No point mulling over it. Clint is waiting. Between her return from Texas two days ago and their scheduled recon mission in Cape Town next week, they have miraculously managed to spend the holidays off duty for the first time in years and it won't do to spoil their mood. She fixes a smile on her face, grabs his gift and steps out of her apartment, carefully avoiding to look at the glass bowl on the lounge table, which is full of shiny pebbles.

 

*

 

They are curled on the couch, watching the snow falling out of the window. They are naked and mellow from the wine and things seem to be heading towards an interesting direction, when Clint shifts to whisper in her ear “Don't you want to open your present?”.

She looks at him thoughtfully.

“I thought we were doing this tomorrow.”

“I can't wait until tomorrow.”

“You can't wait for me to open mine or for you to open yours?”

“Both. Stay put.”

He untangles himself from her body and goes to the bedroom, only to come back moments later with a manila folder and an enigmatic smile.

“A mission brief? Oh Clint, you shouldn't have.”

He looks at her steadily but doesn't respond.

Laying her wineglass carefully on the floor, she opens it to find a bunch of documents with stamps and signatures, some in English and some in a foreign language which she instantly recognizes.

It's not so much the gift per se that causes her to be stunned into silence, as the fact that he had managed to pull the whole thing off without her knowing.

“Is that...?”

He flashes her a triumphant grin.

“We have to get a second lounger though. Not that I don't like you sitting on my lap, but you always manage to distract me and steal all the figs.”

She is speechless.

“When did you...?”

“Right after we came back. I made an agreement with the owner the day before we left and I finalized the papers in DC.”

“ _I'm very sorry, miss. It was sold back in September. I don't know the details, but my husband told me it was an American guy with his wife.”_

“Although I have to say, Nat... two hours for a dozen bottles of cheap wine? You ought to have figured out that something was up. That place certainly made you lose your edge.”

Sleeping without nightmares for the first time in years. Lying under the shade in the afternoon, Clint licking the sea salt from her body. Diving into the sea at night and watching her limbs sparkling as she moved in the dark water, mirroring the light from the stars above.

“On the other hand, maybe you did have a pretty good reason to be distracted. That morning kept me going all the months you spent in Texas afterwards. I think it has made it up in my personal top five.”

Or maybe, just maybe, she has to ask herself why she's always so ready to assume that anything she dares to desire is so out of her reach, as if she doesn't have the right to want it.

He has stopped talking and is looking at her quietly, waiting for a reaction.

“Nat...”

She looks at him through a thin film of something that can't be tears.

“Why?”

He smiles and she knows that he will always see through her.

“I liked the figs.”

 


End file.
